It happens to the best of us, I guess. Late Wednesday, the cable company Comcast had their website redirected to a page created by hackers. Members of the the hacker group Kryogeniks were apparently really proud of blocking Comcast customers from using their web-based email service, potentially affecting up to 14 million customers.

The hackers somehow obtained the username and password for Comcast’s domain name registration account with NetworkSolutions. They logged into Comcast’s account and updated the settings to redirect their home page.

According to sources at NetworkSolutions, Comcast’s account was not hacked nor compromised. Currently, it’s unclear as to how they acquired the username and password.

I’m taking away a valuable lesson from this unfortunate incident: Guard my usernames and passwords with my life. I’ll continue to use my encrypted password manager software, 1Password. Another effective option is to periodically change passwords associated with sensitive accounts.

For those of you who opted for the premium spam filtering service called Postini, here are some links for illustrated, step-by-step instructions on how to use it. The links will take you the respective email support pages on the HostMySite website.

• Adjust your Blatant Spam Blocking Settings - The following article explains how to adjust your Blatant Spam Blocking settings. Blatant Spam Blocking (BSB) is a setting for your domain that detects and deletes the most obvious spam before it reaches your email server. The spam messages are either bounced or deleted and aren’t included in your quarantine summaries. View instructions
• Adjust your Premium Spam Filtering Filter Settings - The following article explains how to adjust your Premium Spam Filtering filter settings. Premium Spam Filtering filtering is based on 4 categories: ‘Sexually Explicit,’ ‘Get Rich Quick,’ ‘Special Offers,’ and ‘Racially Insensitive.’ You have the option of adjusting the overall level of filtering or adjusting each category. Filters are adjusted on a per user basis, allowing each user to determine their own level of filtering. View instructions